Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I'm still trying to fathom why anyone would purposely spend time in Vegas.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<I'm still trying to fathom why anyone would purposely spend time in Vegas.>> Because it is over-the-top crazy which makes it very amusing.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<EACH WAY? Direct flights from LAX start at about half that!>> Maybe for mid-week travel. Flights leaving Friday evening and returning Sunday evening will set you back at least $240. Plus you have to endure the whole security hassle.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Flights leaving Friday evening and returning Sunday evening will set you back at least $240.<< And a standard speed train leaving Friday evening and returning Sunday evening - to Fullerton, mind you, not LAX - will take a big chunk out of your Vegas time.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Because it is over-the-top crazy which makes it very amusing." Folsom Street Fair is over-the-top crazy. Rio's Carnival is over-the-top crazy. Burning Man is over-the-top crazy. The running of the bulls is over-the-top crazy. Vegas, on the other hand, is too corporate and blatantly manufactured to be a genuinely over-the-top crazy experience.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<The running of the bulls is over-the-top crazy. Vegas, on the other hand, is too corporate and blatantly manufactured to be a genuinely over-the-top crazy experience.>> I agree as far as the Strip goes, but Fremont Street is pretty non-corporate over-the-top crazy. I haven't even gone to the Strip my last two trips to Vegas. Fremont is where the fun is.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Even in Japan the only high speed rail that makes money is the one between Tokyo and Osaka and that one has incredible focuses of populations, and a transit route that is limited by the mountain on one side and the ocean on the other to funnel all the population into a narrow corridor.>> Since when? Both JR East and JR West are very profitable and I don't believe they split out the shinkansen line profitability. There are a wealth of examples of successful HST services in Europe from Spain (the Madrid-Barcelona line) to TGV to DB to Eurostar. You don't need huge populations at either end of the lines to make it work. Then there are HST services - even maglev - popping up all over China. HST aren't going anywhere.
Originally Posted By karlg Over "regular rail" it used to take about 7 hours each way to Vegas from LA. With a "corridor" train that is given priority and adding some track so it would not interfere so much with freight it would be reduced to maybe "only" 5.5 hours. To have truly high speed rail you need special welded track that is totally separate from freight track. Additionally there are no grade crossings so you need bridges (for the cars and/or the trains) everywhere it crosses a road. Then figure you maybe have enough passengers to fill ONE or at most two trains on Friday and Saturday and maybe two on Sunday. That is a lot of rail expense and maintenance for a few trains a week. The train would be mostly empty on weekdays and run at a big loss (which is why plane fares are also more expensive on the weekends). The only people to which high speed rail makes sense is the people getting paid to build it, the politicians who get paid off (get campaign contributions from the people that will get money from building it), and the feel good people that misguided people that think it is helping the environment. I fly a lot and the TSA stuff is way overblown. With all the phone ap check-in, kiosks for baggage, plane flying is easier than ever (if you don't mine people seeing your private parts). I like taking trains when they make sense as well (particularly in Japan and and England). The problem is that "time is money" and for people that can make a reasonable living and afford to travel, trains in the U.S. don't make sense almost all the time with rare exceptions.
Originally Posted By leemac <<There are not enough people going being LA and SF or LA and Las Vegas for it to make and technical/economic sense. >> Just about every survey I've ever read on the matter disagrees with that point. I don't have the stats to hand but I think the total journey numbers is approaching 30m between LA-Bay Area annually - including car and air transit. That is a huge market.
Originally Posted By mawnck The question isn't what makes sense now - because none of it does. The question is what will make sense when gas hits $10 a gallon. And it will. It would sure be nice if we had a good rail infrastructure in place when that happens. Because building one when gas is at $10 a gallon is gonna suck.
Originally Posted By karlg leemac, One again Japan is a special case with the population density limited inhabited areas. Based on what I have read (quote from Wikipedia below is one source I could readily find) only the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka (according to Wikipedia the busiest in the world) makes any serious money. The problem is that the rail with bridges and the like is so expensive to build and maintain that it only makes sense if there is a lot of rail travel (many trains with many passengers per train). In Europe, they heavily subsidize the trains, have higher population densities and shorter distances between population centers than are typical in the U.S. A very different situation than LA to Vegas or LA to SF. As for Maglev, that is a total ego trip by the government officials in China. I have ridden the toy system in Shanghai from the airport. The train barely gets to its top speed before it has to start slowing down for the station. It is a total money looser (does not cover its operating expenses, no less its construction costs). For high speed rail to work, it has to be for moderately long hauls (100 to 600 miles) with few stops. From Wikipedia -> "However, the vast construction costs of the Shinkansen network, particularly the later, less profitable lines often driven more by political considerations than actual demand, imposed vast debt servicing costs on JNR that, by 1971, made JNR unprofitable even before depreciation. JNR's Shinkansen-fueled debt eventually ballooned to ¥28 trillion and was an instrumental factor in the company's eventual privatization and breakup.[17] The privatized JRs eventually paid a total of only ¥9.2 trillion to acquire JNR's Shinkansen network"
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "I agree as far as the Strip goes, but Fremont Street is pretty non-corporate over-the-top crazy. I haven't even gone to the Strip my last two trips to Vegas. Fremont is where the fun is." You know what? I've never been to Fremont Street. If and when I'm ever in Las Vegas again I'll have check it out.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Fremont Street is fun. Where else could you have your photo taken with a Cowboy who is gold from head to foot, a little person who looks like a mini-Mr T, or a guy in a pink bikini, among other things. Anyone who can think up an outlandish costume can put it on and head to Fremont street to sell photo ops. Of course there are the usual Elvis's and Showgirls, but they aren't as amusing as some of the others!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt It was "No Pants Day" here in San Francisco yesterday, and a gold cowboy sounds pretty tame in comparison to some of the people I spotted around while running errands.
Originally Posted By karlg leemac ->"Just about every survey I've ever read on the matter disagrees with that point. " Then obviously you are reading the surveys and reports put out by the politicians and people that stand to benefit from building the project. The article pointed to below shows the other side. It also repeat my comment that only the Tokyo to Osaka bullet train in Japan makes money. <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/06/opinion/la-oe-white-railroaded-20111106" target="_blank">http://articles.latimes.com/20...20111106</a> Historically, rail projects underestimate the cost and overestimate the ridership. They also end up making compromises in cost versus speed. Besides I am waiting for them to find some frog, lizard, or flea that is an endangered species that will either shut the whole project down or make them go an extra 100 miles out of the way and take an hour longer to avoid damaging the habitat (this is California after all). I'm an engineer and I would actually like to see all the costs and subsidies for all the various forms of transportation and have the truly best forms win. The sense I get for S.F. to L.A. is that the businessmen and people who's time is valuable will still fly and the people trying to save money/families will still drive (and not take the time and money to park a car at one end and rent a car at the other). Even at $10 per gallon, if a family puts 4 people into a car, at 25 mpg even at $10 per gallon that is about $152 each way or $38/person and they don't have to rent another car (particularly for the ones going from SF to LA). Anyway, not to worry, it sounds like the best case is for the rail line to be completed in about 2030 and that assumes everything goes as planned (and that rarely happens with government projects). Figure it will cost 1.5X to 3X as much and take 1.5X to 3X as long to build if it ever gets completed.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "To make high speed rail work, you need very high population densities at either end and lots of people going between the two cities every day. " Los Angeles to San Francisco makes at least as much sense as, say, Paris to Lyon. That's a very comparable route, except that SoCal and the bay area have more people than Paris and Lyon, respectively, by far. And before you talk about subsidies, remember that highway travel is highly, highly subsidized by taxes. Much more than people realize, and people forget that.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>The question isn't what makes sense now - because none of it does. The question is what will make sense when gas hits $10 a gallon.<< Hey, we're Americans. We don' plan for the future. Or as Winston Churchill said of us, we'll do the right thing, after we've tried everything else.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "To make high speed rail work, you need very high population densities at either end and lots of people going between the two cities every day. " Los Angeles to San Francisco makes at least as much sense as, say, Paris to Lyon. That's a very comparable route, except that SoCal and the bay area have more people than Paris and Lyon, respectively, by far. And before you talk about subsidies, remember that highway travel is highly, highly subsidized by taxes. Much more than people realize, and people forget that.
Originally Posted By leemac <<The article pointed to below shows the other side. It also repeat my comment that only the Tokyo to Osaka bullet train in Japan makes money.>> Thanks for the article karlg. I think the author is playing a little loose with definitions to justify his argument in terms of what is high speed rail and what is profitable (presumably without government subsidies?). However $100bn and rising? Wow. I can understand why Californians are skeptical about this project!
